Brazil

2012

New York, December 18, 2012--Brazilian authorities must
immediately provide protection to journalist Mauri König, who went into hiding
on Monday after receiving death threats related to his reports on police
corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Syrian violence contributed to a sharp rise in
the number of journalists killed for their work in 2012, as did a series of
murders in Somalia. The dead include a record proportion of journalists who
worked online. A CPJ special report

Almost half of the 67 journalists killed worldwide in 2012 were
targeted and murdered for their work, research
by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows. The vast majority covered
politics. Many also reported on war, human rights, and crime. In almost half of
these cases, political groups are the suspected source of fire. There has been
no justice in a single one of these deaths.

Tags:

There are many complex reasons why Brazil has become a
dangerous place to practice journalism. I will cite two possible explanations
for the increase in deaths of journalists in the country, where seven
journalists have been confirmed killed for the work over the past two years.
First, the press is producing more investigative reports on government and
police corruption, the misdeeds of politicians, organized crime, and human
rights violations. Journalists are killed in reprisal for this type of reporting.
The second explanation has to do with impunity. The lack of thorough
investigations for these crimes has created a feeling amongst the perpetrators
that they will not be identified or punished.

The tortured
and decapitated body of 39-year-old María
Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September
2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican
border town ravaged by the war on drugs. Macías, a freelance journalist, wrote
about organized crime on social media under the pseudonym "The Girl from Laredo." Her murder, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, was the first in which a journalist was killed in direct
relation for reporting published on social media. It remains unsolved.

Tags:

New York, November 26, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists today condemned the murder of Brazilian journalist Eduardo Carvalho
in Campo Grande, the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state, which borders
Paraguay and Bolivia. Carvalho was the editor and owner of news website Última Hora News, which frequently
denounced local corruption, according to news
reports.

Tags:

The battle for a free press sometimes feels like a war
between indignation and intimidation. Journalists learn of abuses of power,
crime, or corruption, and--indignant--they speak out. In response, the
perpetrators of those abuses--be they government officials or criminals--try to
intimidate the journalists into silence with threats, lawsuits, jail, or even
murder. Last night, the Committee to Protect Journalists paid
tribute to a handful of journalists for whom indignation is a driving
force, no matter the scale of intimidation.

The jagged mountains ringing Rio de Janeiro descend to a temperate
valley with two storied beaches on the Atlantic. Here is the city that gave the
world a new, eclectic musical
beat with the Bossa Nova, the South American jewel that will host the
summer Olympic Games in 2016. Yet Rio has also been the setting for violence
against journalists, a trend that is on the upswing again throughout this
nation.

Tags:

New
York, July 10, 2012--Brazilian authorities must investigate the murder of radio
journalist Valério Luiz de Oliveira and apprehend the perpetrators, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Luiz was shot and killed on
Thursday afternoon in the western city of Goiânia, according to news reports.